Srinagar: Militants gunned down an elderly cancer-stricken pro-India politician in south Kashmir's Pulwama district on Wednesday, triggering a game of disowning and belated claimsthat mirrored the state's murky politics.

Militants ambushed the Scorpio of Ghulam Nabi Patel, 65, who had unsuccessfully contested Assembly elections in the past and worked with the ruling People's Democratic Party and the Congress on different occasions, killing him and injuring his two guards. But politics hit a new low even before his family could give him a decent burial.

Patel was first disowned by chief minister Mehbooba Mufti, apparently to prove that the PDP was in the good books of militants and thus could not be targeted by militants. The Congress too distanced itself from him.

The PDP owes its origin to pro-militant and soft separatist rhetoric, but the party has lost several men to militancy after it formed a coalition with ideological rival BJP.

Moments after Patel's death, the word spread that he was a PDP leader.

Mehbooba lavished tributes on him but what she apparently sought to convey was that Patel was not a PDP member.

"Heartfelt condolences to the family of senior Congress leader G.N. Patel who was killed by militants today in Rajpora. Such cowardly acts achieve nothing but leave one more family devastated," the chief minister tweeted.

The Congress reacted with its own tributes to what it described as a "senior PDP activist".

State Congress vice-president Mohammad Anwar Bhat said in a statement that Mehbooba was "disowning her own party worker for reasons known to her".

Jammu and Kashmir Congress president Ghulam Ahmad Mir told The Telegraph that Patel had joined the PDP in 2014 in the presence of Mehbooba and (ousted finance minister) Haseeb Drabu.

"Instead of condemning the killing, she came out with a tweet saying he was a Congress leader as if to say that Congressmen deserved to be killed. This is mischievous," Mir said.

The Congress leader said Patel had contested the 2002 Assembly elections on a party ticket but left sometime later.

Sartaj Ahmad, Patel's son, said his father had been with the PDP since 2014. "If they are disowning now, what can I say? It shows how they are playing with the lives of people," Sartaj told this correspondent.

Sartaj said his father had joined pro-India politics four decades ago and contested his first election on a Janata Dal ticket in 1996.

"He was suffering from cancer and was admitted at Soura (Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences) for a month recently but no politician visited him there as well. He was recovering but was killed today," Sartaj said.

"On Wednesday, he had gone to his ancestral home after around seven months to see his first wife and their children," he added.

Sartaj said no pro-India politician visited his home after Patel's death, nor called up the family to offer condolences.

Former chief minister Omar Abdullah expressed his condolences and regretted the state of affairs in Jammu and Kashmir.

"How tragic that Patel Sahib, a political worker assassinated by militants in Kashmir, is being disowned by both the PDP & Congress. If neither party is willing to own him as one of their own let's just call him an NC worker so his death is not in vain," tweeted Omar, a leader of the Opposition National Conference.

"Ghulam Nabi Patel is being denied the dignity of having been assassinated for belonging to a political party just so the PDP & Congress can lie to their workers to claim they aren't at risk from militant bullets," Omar added.

Amid the denial game, Pulwama BJP chief Master Abdul Gani claimed Patel had joined his party two years ago but had not been holding any post.

"We never publicised his joining the party as we had been directed not to do so. Our party was likely to give him a ticket in the next elections from the Rajpora constituency," Gani said.

Police identified the slain personal security officers of Patel as Imtiyaz Ahmad and Abdul Rahman Dar.

A police officer said Patel was returning to Pulwama town, where he lived in an official accommodation with his second wife and children.